Browsing Tag 'sublime'

MGMT, Avett Brothers, Sublime with Rome, Jason Mraz and many others gave life to the Sunfest in West Palm Beach this year. The festival was set in the very picturesque bay in West palm Beach. Soyprensa’s adventure at Sunfest consisted in two days in the festival, opening day and Saturday that featured the ubber-hipster MGMT.

The first day of the festival took place from 5 in the afternoon to 10:30 at night. Our first stop was to check out the reggae band The Supervillians. The band took the stage a little passed 7 PM, and consisted in six surfers playing a Ska-ish reggae, in other words, the perfect band to play in that stage before Sublime. After a while of this, we decided to go to the “Tire Kingdom Stage” (No kidding, that was the real name) to see the very excellent Avett Brothers. Now, I have to say something about this band, all of us here at Soyprensa are huge fans of this bluegrassy/folkish/punkish ensemble, so don’t judge us if we’re biased. The North Carolina band took the stage around 8:15 PM and from the beginning had the crowd in the palm of their hand. After an hour and a half of beautiful melodies, aggressive Banjo and pure energy, the Brothers left us wanting more and wishing for their speedy return to Florida.

To end the night, we decided to check out Sublime. Rome (The new singer) sings and plays very similar to the late Bradley Nowell, and the band seemed to enjoy playing in front of an audience again. Here’s the thing about Sublime, they sound outdated. This may be due to the fact that after their success so many bands tried to emulate their sound, some succeeded at this, and this made their once original sound become some how generic, and it showed on this show.

The second day arrived with grey skies. The probability of rain was high, and that is a dangerous thing for a family festival such as the Sunfest. Luckily it was just the clouds and no water. The first band of the day was the indie rock band Steel Train. The band from New Jersey performed for a little over an hour, and their garage guitars and folk influence was the perfect sound for all hipsters and scenesters that were getting to the grounds for the MGMT show. After Steel Train left the stage it was MGMT’s turn. People went crazy when they started playing, and the band reciprocated that energy. The band played for an hour and a half and pleased the audience with all their hits, psychedelic sounds and a impromptu race by the barricades that separated the crowd and the stage. It was very obvious that the band from Connecticut enjoyed their time playing here and gave their all.

All in all, the festival brought a great crowd, erasing the lines between demographics thanks in part to it’s eclectic line up, in part to the lack of shows coming to this part of the country during summer, but most of all, thanks to bringing artists that people wanted to see. It’s unfair to compare this year’s festival to last year’s. A lot has happened since, people are not so afraid to spend some money; I’m not so mad about the Flaming Lips cancelling at the last minute (that happened last year) or maybe it was just a better line up for my taste in music.

All we can hope for is that Sunfest keeps up the good job and that the revival of Langerado becomes a healthy competition of bringing the best music possible to South Florida.